I unlocked the handcuffs, rubbing the red mark on her wrist without thinking. She gave me a strange look, and I gave her one of exasperation right back. And I thought she’d be the death of me when I was chained in her torture room.
“We have to work together now to stay alive,” I said.
She kept looking at me, her eyes darting from my eyes down to where my fingers still rested on her wrist. She didn’t dare make a move to run because the guard whose gun she wrested away had something to prove now and stood in the doorway with it held at the ready.
She met my eyes again, her brows darting together in confusion. “Why don’t you just turn me over to them and let them kill me?”
I should. There was no good reason not to, and I wasn’t sure why I wasn’t going to. This damn, foolish, hot-headed woman was still making me suffer, and yet I couldn’t seem to let her go or get rid of her. Anger bubbled up inside me, both at her and myself, as well as the Collective, when I thought about what they’d do to her if I came to my senses and handed her over to them.
No one was touching Masha. No one was harming her. I didn’t need a reason, did I? And if so, it was because she was mine. I could feel my face turning to stone, the muscle in my jaw clenching as I stared at her in silence. I didn’t have an answer for her, so she wasn’t going to get one.
She finally looked away. “What do you need me to do?”
Now she asked my opinion on something. I hauled her to her feet and found a tissue in my desk drawer for her bloody lip. I briefly told my men to deal with the body in the usual way, sending it out to sea in the dark of night. Which was still hours away, so they’d have to hide it first, lock up Enzo’s guard in case he was important enough to use as a bargaining tool if it came to it.
She tried to pipe up about a safe house somewhere that her family never used very much, but I shut her down with an icy glance. As soon as things were somewhat under control, I took her back to the house, cursing the distance to the desert, though we’d have been sitting ducks if I’d chosen a place in the city to hide her. Once Julio Santino discovered his son was missing, he’d leave no stone unturned in trying to find him.
Once he learned that Enzo was dead, he’d unleash hell.
The ride home was blessedly silent, and she followed me into the house of her own accord. She only balked when I took her arm and led her upstairs to my room.
“You’re going to leave me here?” she asked, her eyes darting to the bed.
I was, and though I wasn’t going to cuff her this time, she’d be locked in with every guard I left behind on the highest alert. I still couldn’t bring myself to speak to her, but reached out and touched the cut on her lower lip where she’d bit herself getting slammed to the floor. She didn’t flinch or pull away, and I wanted very much to kiss her. Too much. It was pure insanity.
I gently pushed her back and began to shut the door to deal with the predicament she had landed us in. A dead body, a prisoner, an entire organization about to rain fire on me.
“Wait,” she said, trying to wedge her foot in the door to keep me from closing it. “You can’t just leave me behind. I know about this stuff. I can help.”
I grimaced. “You really want to help?”
She nodded, looking hopeful and eager as well as dangerous and too pretty for anyone’s good. I closed my eyes and nudged her foot out of the way, slamming her into the room and turning the key in the lock.
“Then stop being a pain in the ass.”
Chapter 27 - Masha
Pain in the ass? He didn’t just… yes, he did. And he locked me in, too. I slumped into a chair when I heard the click of the lock, not bothering to waste my time pounding on the door. As pissed as I was, I could see why Anatoli wasn’t in the best of moods. Dealing with the body of a high-level mafia leader wasn’t at the top of anyone’s favorite things to do, but… pain in the ass?
Anatoli should have been thanking me. Trying to double-deal an organization like the Collective was a bad idea; it was better to be straightforward with people like that. Just like he should have been straightforward with me instead of letting me believe he was working with them to bring my family down. But would he listen? How could he when his head was so clearly up his ass?
At least I wasn’t cuffed to the bed anymore, so I started rummaging through his things. Everything was neat and tidy, probably indicative of his controlling nature. Except I liked my things in perfect order too, so I tossed away that theory. The dresser drawers didn’t turn up anything useful, so I headed to the closet, starting with his suit jackets. All it would take was for him to forget to empty out his pockets, and I might find a weapon or spare phone.
As soon as I pulled back the lapels of the first jacket to search the inside pockets, a subtle hint of his cologne wafted off the fabric, giving me a jolt as if he’d snuck up behind me. I even looked behind me, thinking he was there. I was all alone with his clothes, all of them smelling like him, and after I went through the pockets, I found myself leaning close to the fine wool and breathing in deeply.
It took me over an hour to go through the closet because the man had a lot of clothes, and a surprising amount of bespoke Italian leather shoes, too. I went through every pocket, stuck my hands into every shoe, and peeked under the carefully rolled silk ties. Not a damn thing until I slid open the bottom drawer of the final cabinet and sat back on my heels, a blush stealing up my chest to warm my cheeks.
The little leather and velvet whip lay in the drawer, bringing back such heady memories that I had to close my eyes, thinking that might help fight them off. No, it only made them rush in faster, filling me with a yearning that had my hand gripping the whip handle. I lashed out at a pair of his shoes, hissing in a breath when it left a scuff on the leather.
I did not miss Anatoli, I did not miss Anatoli, I did not miss Anatoli.
I only missed what he could do to me. It hadn’t been that long, but it felt like forever since his mouth was on mine, or his hands were doing something other than jerking me from one place to another. It felt like I was starving. Dragging the tips of the whip against my leg, I shuddered, then opened my eyes.
The damn thing wasn’t a weapon by any means, but maybe if I lashed it hard enough, I could slip past him. And then what, genius? I wasn’t used to having zero options, and I hated it. Almost as much as I hated still being so desperately attracted to Anatoli, which was even more than I hated feeling grateful to him for saving me, not just once but twice now. I had put on a front saying I could have dealt with that nasty guard on my own, but without a weapon, I probably wouldn’t have been able to overpower him. So, it was definitely twice.
I lashed the whip again, hitting one of his jackets, wishing I had a punching bag to take out my frustration thatwasn’t all based in anger. Even being overwhelmed by lust for my archenemy was better than being fearful of the Collective. Everything I had learned about them before I got sidetracked with Anatoli told me they weren’t an organization to be trifled with.
Basically, you didn’t want to go around killing their important members, just like in my own family. If someone killed one of us, there’d only be one end for them, and it would be very, very painful.
